Unfortunately, the answer is no. While there are many things you can do to help you save money on your monthly energy bills, closing the air vents to rooms you are not using or rooms that feel too cold is not one of them. Here’s a quick look at how closing vents around the home can actually cause trouble for your air conditioner, and what you should try instead.
Your Air Conditioner Is Designed to Cool a Certain Amount of Space
The main reason to keep your vents open is that your air conditioner was designed to cool a given amount of square feet. The amount of space changes when you block off a vent, leading to issues with the performance of the AC system. The compressor may start to struggle to keep up, as will the fan motors and some additional electrical components. Your air conditioner might short-cycle (run for shorter periods of time, but more frequently) resulting in high bills and additional problems with the system.
Follow Our Tips for Even and Efficient Cooling
If you shut off vents around your home, you probably do it for one of two reasons: to save money or to keep a room from feeling way too cold. We have a few solutions for each of these concerns.
- You want to save money on cooling costs. Instead of shutting vents around the home, try following our experts’ money saving tips. Clean the air filter each and every month. Set the thermostat to no more than 78 degrees. And schedule routine AC maintenance every year!
- The rooms in your home are not cooling evenly. If the rooms of your home won’t cool evenly, shutting the vents is not a solution. There is something wrong with your system, and you should have a professional assess the issue. You may want to consider installing a zone control system so that you can control the temperature in each room differently.
Air Classic is your source for quality air conditioning repair in the Los Angeles, CA area. Call us for all of your air conditioning needs!
